The inescapable ’80s: 8-bit, SimCity, and Wing Commander all make a comeback

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I do everything I can to not dwell too much on the 1980s and early 1990s, but sometimes I just don’t have any other choice. I think it’s a generalized problem you experience as you get older: try as you might, you can’t completely abandon your formative years, full of the most important firsts that define the standards by which you’ll live the rest of your life. That’s where I am right now. But I have a good defense for being tormented by the ghosts of 20 or so years ago: those years just won’t stop coming back! Every time I’m positive I’ve managed to evict them from my mind, they come catapulting back into the culture, as obnoxious as Garbage Pail Kids and just as difficult to forget. And maybe it’s just me, but the last week or so has been bringing more of these to the forefront than I’ve seen in a while. Though, hey, at least they’ve been interesting intrusions into the pseudo-serenity of the present.

Linux is in an unusual place. I’m a fan of Linux, and not just because of the terrifying direction in which Windows 8 is heading. No, I like it for the same reason I like building computers: the sense of being on the frontier, and of having complete control over something in ways that Microsoft and Apple are increasingly unwilling to bestow me. So I was thrilled to discover a project that Dmitry Grinberg wrote about called “Linux on an 8-bit micro?“, in which he… well, you can probably figure it out. Yes, he got Linux 2.6.34 running on an ATmega1284p, if you can believe it. Grinberg’s story is worth reading in full, both for the sheer novelty value of it, but also for what it can teach you about solving problems. (One spoiler out of many possible: He ended up writing his own modular ARM emulator.)

A project like this isn’t going to be within everyone’s grasp, admittedly, but it’s a nice reminder that the enterprising computing spirit is far from dead in the homebrew technology world. As you may know if you’ve been reading me for a while, that’s something I worry about quite a lot, so this gives me some modicum of hope for the future. (You can download the source code he used, too, and be sure to watch the accompanying video as well.) By the way, if you’ve done something as adventurous as this — or even close to it — I’d love to hear about it.

Sim old, same old

SimCity is coming back! I was unreasonably excited at the news, I must confess. I played the original back in 1989 and fell in love with it before it spawned its own industry of sequels (remember Sim Ant?) and spinoffs (of which The Sims is, at this point, undoubtedly the most famous). And though I’ve never been quite as taken with the later versions as I was with the first, I still enjoy playing mayor now and then in a way my natural aversion to political sucking-up would never allow me in real life. But my elation quickly turned to annoyance when I encountered the inevitable caveat: playing it will require an always-on internet connection. This isn’t quite as onerous as copy protection schemes I’ve previously complained about from Ubisoft and on Batman: Arkham City, but it’s still a pain given the apparent reason: “the game’s emphasis on multiplayer and regional impact, and the use of a global economy that all players can influence.”

Some of that sounds intriguing, but sometimes I just want to lose myself in my own experience and not worry endlessly about what other people are doing — why am I not being given that chance? The good news, that the game won’t have to be bought through Origin, doesn’t quite compensate. I’m willing to consider extending Electronic Arts the benefit of the doubt, but I’d really like to see better justifications than this.

Wing Commander wings back

In the sepia-tinted era of the earliest years of full-motion video in PC games, three titles stand out: The 7th Guest (I’m still tormented by visions of soup cans), Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger, and Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom. The last two were notable because of the zettawatt acting talent (well, in sci-fi terms) they attracted — Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, John Rhys-Davies, Tom Wilson — but also because they were good games, packed with action and stories you could really care about. So the arrival of Wing Commander Saga: Darkest Dawn (pictured top) is a major occasion: this fan-constructed companion piece to Wing Commander III has been in the works for a decade or so, and gives diehards a chance to rekindle the love affair with frenetic space combat that few games today have been able to replicate with the same panache.

ExtremeTech regular Joel Hruska penned a thorough rundown of the game that’s worth reading if you want an idea of what you’re in for. Whether you’re a veteran fighter of the Kilrathi or you’ve never set eyes on them before, you owe it to yourself to sample this labor of love and see (or be reminded of) why not everything about the late ’80s and early ’90s was as bad as it’s so often portrayed today.